Revulsion

I just blogged about embarrassment. It's one of those odd emotions that isn't particularly celebrated because it isn't at the extremes. It's not joy. It's not hatred. It's not funny. It's not sad. And yet embarrassment probably weighs more in many of our day-to-day decisions than these other emotions which are generally not extreme.

It's why we have restrooms with stalls. It's why people sometimes avoid using public showers in gyms preferring the more complex ritual of wearing gym appropriate clothing then scurrying home to privacy. This usually adds quite a few minutes to everyday proceedings, but is considered worth the added measure of avoided embarrassment.

On the flip side, if there is such a thing, is revulsion. Revulsion, in this case, is a much stronger word than I want to use, but is the sense you get when you think "eww!".

Perhaps the strongest sense of revulsion for some is sharing food. Someone makes, oh I don't know, a bowl of macaroni and cheese. Or better yet, a bowl of cereal. Then, you are asked to eat it. Using the same spoon. At what point do you go, ewww! Ok, let's say you get to use a new spoon. Would you still say, ewww!

I was once with several Indians eating at Cheesecake Factory. While they could have all ordered their own milkshake, instead only one was ordered for all three. This has to do with another sense: frugality. If you choose to be frugal, then you might be less repulsed because sharing makes more sense, and that sharing extends to food.

Once one person ordered a milkshake, the rule became "anyone who thinks it might taste good should have an opportunity to taste it" (which overrules "if it's so good, then get one yourself" which is not invoked because it costs too much and is too much food). And because revulsion is not as big a problem, several straws dipped into the same milkshake, and much joy was to be had.

Americans would react two ways. One is "ewww" because of hygiene. The second reaction comes, oddly enough, from homophobia. Two people who are in love might overcome their revulsion to things unhygienic. Perhaps their love blinds them to the fact that something that would gross them out with strangers is OK with someone you care about. For whatever reason, Americans think of lovers sharing drinks, so there's something vaguely gay about two or more guys sharing the same drink. And Americans males tend to be quite homophobic, or view certain actions as homosexual even as other cultures see it as no big deal.

Revulsion isn't also about food sharing, but applies to intimacy. Many people can get to a level of intimacy because they are turned on by someone. This feeling often overcomes two related feelings: embarrassment and revulsion.

I knew a former housemate, and really, this could apply to many, many people I knew who found the idea of going to gym showers as somewhere between embarrassment and revulsion. On the one hand, we imagine the following thought experiment, a kind of experiment that probably never entered the brain of one Albert Einstein, father of thought experiments.

In this case, you imagine a gym shower near some locker, and to create some sense of embarrassment, I'll be a participant and you be the one using the facilities. To reduce the ewww factor, I'll be clothed, and you won't. You might still find this situation uncomfortable. You don't like the way you look. You don't like that others are looking at the way you look. Classic embarrassment, and perhaps to some extent, a secondary embarrassment if you feel the other party is somehow enjoying things too much, perhaps at your expense.

This reaction is different from someone who sings well or who plays well or who can share their intellectual acumen. In such situations, admiration is permissible and not the least bit embarrassing, indeed, it's rewarding.

Now, we can add the eww factor. Other folks are now using the facilities in the same boat as yourself, and society conditions you, especially males, to saw ewww. The male body is repulsive. This typically stems from a kind of homophobia American men grow up with but is combined a bit with embarrassment plus revulsion.

But to show you that the revulsion is not purely homophobia, because it isn't, we can rerun the thought experiment this way. If you're a straight guy, the gym scene would have involved unclothed men, and the thought is that these men are likely not the finest athletic specimens, and even if they were, well, ewwww!

Let's replace these unclothed men with unclothed women! Again, the strong sense of revulsion American males are trained to have about other males when they grow up has a flip side. They automatically assume that the women involved have mistakenly left their Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and have entered their shower facilities. They might even overcome their embarrassment because, wow, such hot women must surely be frolicking around without a care in the world.

Much better situation.

Much.

Ah, but let's tweak this experiment. If a guy thinks that the reason he doesn't want to be in a room of showering men because they would be obese, bad, and generally eww, we can do the same in this thought experiment.

Out you go, you Twiggy like women, you buxomous babes. Replaced with people who are a few pounds heavier with a few more sags, puffs on the cheeks, and suddenly, the notion is ewww, I don't have any desire whatsoever to see you? But wait, sir, aren't you heterosexual? Why, yes, but these women are (looks both sides before talking to you) fat whispered in hushed tones. Ah yes, not the erotic specimens that would bring fire to your loins.

OK, so let's not pester you about how society denigrates the overweight, claims weight can be controlled, and has perfectly logical
reasons for the biases (but really, it amounts to making excuses). After all, women with more ample hips were seen as models of beauty in the Renaissance.

We can replace these women with women of experience. Yes, you know what I'm talking about. Cougars. Grrr. Sure, they're a little gray, but for their age, maybe not so bad. Maybe they remind you of your, oh no. Noooo! Mother? Ewwwww! Grandmother!!! Stop it! Ewwww!

Perhaps we don't like to think about a locker room full of the geriatric set because they are SO old, but really, it's because we associate nudity with eroticism, and with advertisers realizing sex sells, they only want to promote teenagers and twenty-somethings and preferably early 20-somethings, lest they remind you that they might be your parents.

This sense of revulsion seems so strong that people are repulsed even as they get older. These women ought to be more age appropriate, but somehow the idea they were ewww when you were young isn't quite gone when you are older.

So revulsion typically comes from two sources. One is hygiene. There are some cultures, like Japanese culture, that might find even more things ewww than Americans, but Americans generally want everything to be ultra sanitary especially when it comes to food, but really, restrooms kinda fit the bill too.

The second eww has to do with how Americans especially American males equate nudity with eroticism and so either you like someone's body (i.e., they are sexy) or on the flip side, they are ewwww! Because you can't imagine making love to them. Even if that thought is not explicit, it is implied that this is the reason you'd rather avert your eyes.

The emotions of embarrassment and revulsion seem much prevalent than other more celebrated emotions. They are hard to write great plays about because they don't lift you up, nor do they make you particularly sad, and yet, they have a profound influence on the way you run your life.